This plan could either be Apollo 11 level astronomical or Apollo 13 level disappointing cousin who’s also probably gay. The difference of two shall be fulfilled by Kal and me.

Or so as I presume.

We hauled into the darkroom, all geared up and ready to shout, “FBI, OPEN UP!” I was hoping that was the plan really. To distract Kal with my pain in the ass jokes and distract him from the fact that he came walking to me in the middle of the night under objectionable circumstances and knocked on my door.

That reminded me, “Knock Knock?” I asked as we all were squinting our eyes, hoping it’ll dilate our pupils faster.

While Alex was navigating his way like a mummy, as if flinging his hands in front of him would bestow him with sensory receptors that seeped through his skin and provide him with an infrared vision, Kal was looking around. He was looking for someone, or as I hoped he did, but knowing him I knew he was evading eyes that’ll meet his with the sense of familiarity and acquaintance. He repels human interaction like a proton repels others. It was time to bind him with strong nuclear force.

 Right now, I only had an assortment of ‘knock-knock jokes’ as the gluons.

I cleared my throat and loosened the shirt’s grip on me that absorbed my sweat and words, drying up my throat, “Knock Knock?” My croaky voice almost matched the Nike shoes' squeaky noises.

“You don’t take a clue when someone purposely ignores you, right?” I could smell Kal’s shrug teasing and flaring my nostrils.

“Who’ s it?”

I smiled, then shut my mouth when I realised my lips are chapped and it might bleed, “Lena.”

“Lena who?”

I leaned a little closer, sure of the fact that he can sense my breath on his cheek, “Lena a little closer, I’ll tell you another joke!”

Leaning closer actually helped, Kal was trying hard to suppress his sheepish smile behind his intimidating persona that needed two-factor authentication. I am glad I entered the pin right.

“Come on,” I ribbed, “just tell me you loved my joke.”

“That’s why I came to your place,” I sensed his hardened smile melting to earnest warmth, “ I knew you’d make me forget the chaos I encompass.”

“No big words at night,” Alex said groggily, cutting in the conversation, “ You guys know my brain pumps alcohol at night that I never had?”

Kal’s eyes narrowed at Alex’s words. “Come again?” Kal puzzled.

“His brain forgets to function at night, almost like a drunk person,” I elaborated.

“Or is it that he concedes the fact that he’s dumb at night?” Kal chuckled, holding both of us and taking us to the ring centre.

“Do you know anyone who’s playing?” Kal asked, “It’s a team sport, right? Who’d we be pairing with?”

“Oye, didn’t you tell Kal about Leini joining us?” Alex trotted drunk. That’s why I don’t take him with me at night.

“Ah, that’s why you were beating around the bush.” Kal deadpanned, his sneer fogging his displeasure... “Nah, it’s fine, as long as Leini is in the opposite team I don’t mind playing. The sadistic side of mine would love to see someone tased to near abduction.” His lips twisted more than his words.

Alex and I swallowed hard together, then tethered our glances. Alex was the first one to break the already chilling ice, “and what are we annexing?”

“I dunno,” Kal shrugged, “reason or revenge over old wounds induced when experimenting with boundaries?”

“Pfft,” Alex snorted, “ Whatever butters your croissant, Monsieur.”

'''

Lyric, Leini, Zion and Kamryn were waiting by the gear alley. Alex scuffed towards them, eyeing and circling around them like a bounty hunter who was about to get his enemies down.

"Yeehaw cowboy," Leini mocked, "cut us some slack out of your wild west fantasies."

Lyric was quick to comment, "well, things can go wild south wise too," her eyes went through a quick examination session of Alex, "if it involves gun of a snack like him."

Kal coughed. "Is it me or I always found your sexual metaphors strangulating?" He pulled a face.

Zion let out a stale yawn, that was the last thing I wanted my face to be greeted with.

"Thanks for reminding why I shouldn't  spare a gum under the table face of your from crushing the rocks by the bleachers," Zion commented.

"Oh, we didn't want to catch the faggot disease," Kamryn added.

I stood there, taken aback, as Kal was letting these bastards bomb him with words full of venom and how he was reduced to ashes. It was choking me. Was he letting them melt into the mist so that it'll be easy to forget him and won't pick at him again? AND THIS 2020. IS IT STILL COOL TO CALL GAYS FAGGOT?

I can't believe Leini calls them friends.

Maybe that's why Kal doesn't call her friend.

"Can you guys get over your 1800's homophobic slurs or you've forgotten to evolve from monkeys? Even they own a pennyworth more sense than you." I retorted.

Leilani looked at me, possibly pursed her lips with a silent apology, but I wished she would have unstitched that purse and let her voice shut them.

"OMG, why are y'all standing on my last nerve, did he give you the disease too?" Lyric fluttered, then turned to Alex, all doe-eyed.

"I hope you haven't caught it yet." Oh, the way she smiled wanted me to take all her teeth, make a disco ball out of it, wear a pride spandex and play "it's raining men."

Hallelujah.

"Pfft," Alex rolled his eyes," you know what sweetheart," he leaned in closer, forcing her to lean too, "light travels faster than sound and that's why you look dumber even before you open your mouth."

"Burn." I coughed between my suppressed laughter. Alex, after all, might not be a pain in the ass that much.

"Uh," Kamryn quickly scampered through her limited pantry of middle school bully insults, "looks like Kal has got his hair done today for his lover boy. Wow, how did you get them to come out of your nose?"

"Just like your dad got you to come out of a broken condom." Kal snapped before I could.

"Can we just stop these middle-school insults and play for the time being?"

"Yeah, we could do that." Leini stood between us and them. "Let your boys team up against us?"

"But that makes the teams uneven," Alex questioned.

"Didn't Kass say that she was with me? She's coming back in a couple of minutes. Why don't we get geared up till then?"

I agreed and took the boys to a booth on the opposite side of the ring. I wanted zero contact with those blithering idiots. I wonder why God doesn't permanently distant us socially from people like them. We already have a pandemic handy.

No darks jokes, I shook my head to remove the residual strands of dark jokes I had.

Maybe those jokes need some light, not an ill-lit room like this.

Okay, no pun as well.

I saw Kal, sulking, but breezily navigating through the comb of people and their pleated warmth and happiness, while his corner of eyes was worn heavy with all the pain he carries and dark with how much he beats himself up for what he feels.

How long will it take for him to not feel anything? After all, he feels guilty of feeling? It's 'cause he feels, that's why he's hurt. I can see it, like an X-ray. Yet, I'm hesitating to find the cure.

Or maybe be the cure?

"What took you so long?" Kal hugged Kassy as she ran towards him.

"Nothing, I guess Leini didn't want me to your ass being kicked." She shrugged.

"Or us kicking their non-existent ego." Alex scoffed, then handed her the gear.

"So," Kal opened his mouth, but then shut it down, as if to gather his thoughts, "out of all people, you chose Leini?"

"Miranda was at her aunt's place. You know I would go anywhere but at Leini's if I have a choice." Kassy lowered her eyes and held his hand, in assurance.

"So," Kal shook his head, "how do we play this?"

"Simple," Alex removed the cover of his taser gun, pretending to recoil a loaded gun, "we shoot our opponents till they are on their knees."

"And begging pretty please." Kassy smiled.

'''

This was not a good plan.

All of us split up thirty seconds within the game. It wasn't exactly as I thought it'll be. "Our" team had at least fifteen players and so far I was the one with jersey number "disappointment." I heard the tantalizing electric discharge of taser guns virtually bleeding out the victims and my eardrums. If I was right, Kassy and Alex had already taken down a lot of people and Kal was on a zombie mode and ready to incinerate the baloney trio (you guessed it right) out of their existence.

My eyes met Kal, not in a romantic way, God no. His eyes filled with wrath and the false adrenaline of fight masked behind sweaty bodies and his crystal blue eyes, blue as the sky outside a prison wall, ready to break free.

It might sound bizarre but with his fanatic screams and hysterical laughs, he was happy.

I was glad.

As I was about to accompany him on his man versus imbecile troops hunt, his eyes swirled and turned to the deepest shades of dark, with speckles of light reflecting the UV lights in the room.

"Eli, duck right now!"

I didn't have time to comprehend nor turn around, so I did what every boy scout would do when given dishwashing duty.

I slept on the floor, flat on stomach, pretending to sleep.

The sparks from taser hit right above me as some random guy fell beside me. I gapped at him, then at Kal, as he gave me a hand to rise up.

"Is that your defence mechanism?" He sneered, "to fall dead? Lemme guess, 'cause your lousy lil ass is sleepy?"

"Loosen up colonel," I retorted, "this ain't Vietnam and you ain't Nixon." 

He let out a sigh, then looked at me, with the same tame eyes. "Just don't get hurt."

"How would you define hurt?" I crossed my arms and tilted a little.

"The taser doesn't hurt you, just lets the sensor on your gear know that you're tased, thus deactivating your taser. But people," he looked back at the guy he just shot, who was still on the ground, hunching in play-pretend pain, "take it differently."

"So, will you trust me this one time and stay by side?" He brought his hand in front of me.

Better trust a cotton candy filled Kal than someone who was about to jump a cliff weeks ago.

Of course, I took his hand.

With that, he instructed me and I acted accordingly, taking down opponents like hitting each note in the orchestra, gracefully. Enter a clean slice of Quentin Tarantino fight scene montage, which satiates your aesthetic palate. We ducked, dodged, kicked occasionally and definitely tased a lot of opponents.

With that, the taser game just electrified the dead meat out of Kal. He was so focussed in the game and focussed out of the hell his life has been. All I know that his parents were giving him a hard time… I just didn't want to believe that it was hard for him to live too.

Right now, he was fucking ray of sunshine. Cleaning slashing through people. Taking in every inch of dopamine his body could provide and smiling through his eyes. Oh his eyes, they lit up like a meteor shower, letting a myriad of his dreams come true. That's how happy was as if all of his dreams came true.

 I always thought that to configure Kal is like handling onions, a very baffling analogy, I know. I couldn't help but find his personality layered, the more I uncover, the more layers I find. Some of them have bolt locks of seclusion, others have cobwebs of worn emotions.  Analysing him meant tears in your eyes, just like chopping onions. The more you analyse, the more you realise how unloved he felt to take such a step.

I was scared for a moment, wondering if he had stopped feeling altogether. You know, only a shell of a man can take a step he did. Oh boy, I was so wrong, so was he. He did feel. Felt manifolds of emotions.

Shunning everything was just his defence mechanism. If feeling things and words hurt, why not stop feeling altogether?

"Do you realise that you deserve so much better?" I blurted.

"Are you talking to me?" Kal replied, his eyes still on the arena, looking for opponents.

"Yeah, you'd feel that no one cares about your presence or absence, that's why you were ready to leave, so easily."

I don't know what was on my face but it was definitely remorse. It made him turn around and look at me with concern.

"Don't let a bunch of morons dictate whether you're loved or not."

"Eli, it's more than that—"

"I know it is, it will always be more than that. It'll always get tough, it'll always feel dreadful. It'll always hurt like...death. That doesn't mean you have to do the honours yourself. Life is not a movie, it's not a book, where you close it and baam! It's done—"

"Eli, I know—"

"And don't tell me you're taking yourself from a nightmare of a life by leaving this dream."

"You know," he came closer and put a finger on my lips, "it feels like my life is one fire and the only way out is to jump out of the window."

I smiled, "that's where you're wrong. You douse the fire. You're gonna die anyway, might as well die with the last memory of you being a fighter. Kal, I can't promise that things will get better, they never will, but you'll grow stronger."

His finger trailed down, his hand cupping my face. Other times, it would have sent a chill down my sound, his touch, but now, the warmth of his hand just indicated that he's here. That's all that I wanted.

He leaned in closer, where I could practically feel his breath right above my cupid's bow.

"You do speak a lot, don't you?" He tilted his head as I went breathless. 

"Three years ago, if those three losers had found me this close to a boy, I would have been a punching bag of the school. That made me flush a lot of close friends down the drain, to protect me and them. At this point, I don't care, as long as I have someone like you caring way too much for me. I can use an extra shoulder to carry my burden."

His lips now were right next to my ear, and I could feel the pulse down his neck.

'But right now, Alex traded your position in our team for Leini. As much as I hate her, she's a good shooter."

With that, he pushed me gently against the wall of the room, and let the gun tase me right at my chest.

~~~

A/N
Yeehaw new chapter new year. I'm in uni rn with a bf and good friends and great food and a happy environment. This wasn't the same when I started this book 4 months ago. There's a reason why the plot revolves around suicide. I've went through ups and downs with this book, from writing frantically to abandoning it midway. Let me tell you, I love this book and probably take time with it. Rn, I'm writing how to kill a god in drafts and may start other projects simultaneously, but this baby deserves time and patience. Thank you for sticking💙